Simple fact is that, Spam works. If you send out 10 million emails and only 0.05% (1 in 2000) people respond that's 5000 responses! That's 5000 people buying your useless bottle of penis enlargement pills at $10-50 a pop.
 
Yes, people are THAT unbelievably stupid.
 
However, it's not all doom and gloom. Recent innovations in spam filtering software has made the average spammers life more difficult. Long-time spammer, Bernard Balan, 51, who operates a bulk mail site from Emsdale, Ontario called one-stop-financial.com, says he's gone through "unbelievable hardships" to keep the spam flowing.

Your objective is simple: World Domination

Your motive is a little bit more complex: To show them all

Stage One:

To begin your plan, you must first Seduce a Rock Star. This will cause the world to sit up and take notice, stunned by your arrival. Who is this Unholy Menace? Where did they come from? And why do they look so good in Classic Black?

Stage Two:

Next, you will Desecrate that Opera House in Sydney. This will cause countless hordes of Mad Scientists to flock to you, begging to do your every bidding. Your name will become synonymous with Insanity, as lesser men whisper your name in terror.

Stage Three:

Finally, you will Unleash your Horsemen of the Apocalypse, bringing about an End to Sanity. This will all be done from a Abandoned Church, an excellent choice if we might say. These three deeds will herald the end, and the citizens of this planet will have no choice but to elect you their new god.

Trust us, it'll all come together in the end.

A quote from a friend:

"Proof that we really are in the 21st century despite the lack of flying cars and scarcity of TV phones...

My friend just said 'shit I just crashed my phone."

A federal judge Wednesday found unconstitutional a part of the United States' anti-terror Patriot Act that allows authorities to demand customer records from businesses without court approval.

I woke up today with some level of ability to breathe through my nose. It's not great, but it's not a complete blockage now. So far today I've taken a dose of Azep (azelastine hydrochloride), which helps with the itchy, painful eyes but doesn't do a great deal for the nasal blockage. I have some other nasal spray (oxymetazoline HCI) that does a great job of fixing that, but you can only take it for five days and then have to stop for a while, so I'm trying to avoid taking more than I really, really need.

I have never in my life had a case of hayfever this severe, although I've had problems with it off and on for ages. I don't know why it's so bad this year. I'm guessing that it might be the rain, as we've had a lot of it this year (following several years of drought), and maybe whatever it is that I'm allergic to is in greater abundance because of that.

And now a scary thought occurs to me... When I came to Australia there was a drought on, so maybe whatever-it-is was in low abundance, and the levels that are around now are normal, in which case I'm going to have this every year until there's another drought.... *eek*

I think I'm going crazy again.

[EDIT]

Okay, probably not. I do think I'm suffering from sleep deprivation due to the severity of my hayfever, though. Sleep deprivation can certainly cause symptoms that look and feel like mental illness.

Microsoft Corp. filed nine new lawsuits against spammers who send unsolicited e-mail, including an e-mail marketing Web hosting company, the world's largest software maker said on Thursday.

I've made a commitment to stop the negative cycles I get caught up in. I'm negative by a lifetime of habit, and I've been trying to kick this for years. I've been only semi-successful at keeping myself from being unreasonably negative and I've frequently found myself either falling into the trap or being drawn in.

I'm not talking about being "nice" or about never getting angry. Not only do I think that "nice" is usually fake, humans get angry, and much as I may wish I weren't human, I am. What I'm talking about is learning to stop myself from just being sucked in and carried off by the vortex of negative emotions.

Among the stuff I'm going to deliberately avoid being drawn into are flame wars, pissing matches, and going at something like a dog with a bone (something for which I'm infamous). The fact is, when you sling sh*t, you can't help but have some of it stick to you, and I'm tired of that. Angry, annoyed, tired and cranky, all of that stuff I can allow myself to be, but I'm really, REALLY dedicated to changing this tendency of mine to get drawn into negativity and absorbing it, and, heaven knows, spewing it right back out again. It's dysfunctional and ugly and frequently painful and I'm really, really tired of it.

I do expect that I'll sometimes still fall into this trap because years of habit don't just go away overnight. I have, however, changed many things about myself, so I know it can be done. It's just a matter of time, effort, and dedication.

...it's kicking my arse.

I don't know what I'm allergic to. I did notice that during the week it got somewhat better, probably because it was raining and whatever the allergen is goes down when it rains (which makes me suspect that it's some sort of pollen, and probably something natively Australian).

I've got a nasty cough from the post-natal drip, my eyes are itchy and swollen and when I blow my nose, tears gush forth. I slept horribly, and probably will continue to do so, until whatever this is that's kicking my immune system's arse is in less abundance.

And the worst thing is that for the most part, allergy medications have about zero effect on me. Bleah.

I did get some nasal spray, which should help somewhat, but I can only take it for about five days before I need to stop for a while. I don't know if this damned annoying allergy will subside in that time, of course, but we'll see.

If this continues, I'll have to go to the doctor and see if there's some prescription medication that might be able to help somewhat. This "not being able to breathe" is pretty damned annoying, to say the very least.

This blog is really boring lately. I dunno why, really. I guess I just don't have anything interesting to say.

We did go to the National Gallery of Victoria last week to see the exhibition on the Impressionists (well, it had a bunch of Post-Impressionists, too), and that was moderately interesting and I'm glad I saw it, but really I'm not that big of a fan of the Impressionist/Post-Impressionst era, so I wasn't all thrilled like I was when we saw the Caravaggio exhibition. I did get to see several very famous paintings in person, and I always enjoy that, and there were some fun surprises, but really, the Impressionists don't interest me as much as various other eras in art history.

There's going to be an Edvard Munch (you know, the Expressionist who painted "The Scream") exhibition coming soon, and I like Expressionism reasonably well, but I'm not sure if we'll go or not.

Hmmmm. Still boring....

A friend of mine just said this to me via ICQ:

"Geek props to you, homey G-eek."

Heheh. I have Geek Cred, dammit!

Well, I must admit, threatening to eat a cute, lop-eared bunny rabbit if you don't raise a certain amount of money by the end of the year certainly is a novel way to raise money.

For what it's worth, I honestly don't know if the site is a joke or not. It appears to be serious, but who knows. I did find it bizarre enough to provide a link, although I'm neither endorsing nor condoning the holding hostage of bunny rabbits for financial gain.

...and I feel fine.

THE SKY IS ALWAYS FALLING
As the world awaits the passing—or crashing—of planetoid Toutalis, thoughts on the doomsday tradition and our own end-times culture.

Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has warned that "terrorists" are flooding into his country from across the Muslim world.

Every spring I get this, and it always drives me crazy. I've had a headache for four days straight, and when I bend over or turn around too fast I get very dizzy and occasionally nauseated (just from being dizzy). I'm very irritable, as well (well, you deal with a four-day-long headache and see how you feel). I know it's hayfever, although I don't know what, specifically, it is. Arrrgh.

This one definitely bears reading. Summary:

This update resolves a newly-discovered, privately reported vulnerability. A buffer overrun vulnerability exists in the processing of JPEG image formats that could allow remote code execution on an affected system. The vulnerability is documented in this bulletin in its own section.

If a user is logged on with administrator privileges, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system, including installing programs; viewing, changing, or deleting data; or creating new accounts with full privileges. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer privileges on the system would be at less risk than users who operate with administrative privileges.

Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.

Details on Microsoft's site.

Andrew worked up this lovely "bad Latin" for my personal motto:

Joculare eis, se non acciptia coiti.

Microsoft seem to have taken on the job of educating people about spam. To that effect, they've put up a page about spam and what to do about it. Most of the advice is fine, except for this little ignorant gem:

Forward spam to the spammer's Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you get unwanted mail, the sender's address will show the ISP name after the "at" (@) sign. If it came from MSN.com, forward the entire e-mail with headers, to mailto:mailto:abuse@hotmail.com.

I couldn't let it go unchallenged. I sent them a message via their feedback form. Here's what I wrote (slightly edited to remove unnecessary redundancy):

Under "Step 2" you suggest to "Forward spam to the spammer's Internet Service Provider (ISP)" but then you tell people that "the sender's address will show the ISP name after the "at" (@) sign"

This is absolutely ridiculous advice. NO spammer is going to put their actual address or ISP in the "from" field. They usually use fake addresses, and of course if you try to reply you just get a bounce message and also generate needless network traffic.

Spammers also sometimes put in the "from" field a random address from their list. Reporting spam of that sort may be sending false reports to the ISP of a totally innocent party who just happens to be on the spammer's list.

Please, remove this piece of bad and useless advice as soon as possible. I'm really surprised to see something this wrong on Microsoft's site. It's about the same as telling people to prevent spam by tying a string around their big toe: Useless, unless it actually does harm!

Although spamming has existed on the Internet since as early as 1978, the first major spamming incidents didn't take place until the early 1990s. Spamming began becoming a major problem at the same time that the Internet began its exponential mainstream expansion in 1993 (also known as Eternal September). (Hmmm, that's right when I was getting on the net, actually...)

Every time I get bitched out or verbally abused or otherwise penalized for trying to help, it makes me that much less inclined to help. Fact is, I can be very helpful and informative on a number of subjects, but I'm always less and less inclined to do that every time some random fool comes along and singles me out as a target for their personal vendetta or rage or whatever.

Just seems to be a shame, that's all. But it does confirm my basic beliefs about people in general. Unfortunately.

So, why is it that someone will come along and admit they know nothing at all about you, then proceed to flame the crap out of you based on their own ill-conceived ideas, and never bother to find out who you actually are and what you're on about? I mean, it's not like I'm anonymous or anything.

In the calculus of Internet crime, two of the most sought-after commodities are zombie PCs and valid e-mail addresses.
 
One indication of the going rate for zombie PCs comes from a June 11 posting on SpecialHam.com, an electronic forum for spammers. The asking price for use of a network of 20,000 zombie PCs: $2,000 to $3,000. Such networks typically are used to broadcast spam and phishing scams and to spread e-mail viruses designed mainly to create yet more zombies.

No Mention At Convention Has Madman Miffed

Playboy is taking a chance on silicon instead of silicone. The October issue of the men's magazine features several video game characters posing in the nude — images created by the game companies through detailed computer illustration.

It's got some nudity in it (don't worry, the thumbnail is flagged, like all the other stuff at my main digital art site), but if you want to have a look, go ahead (it's a fairy, just for the record; haven't done one in ages).

No, it's not a poltical thing, it's just a bit of a giggle, really. If I wanted to start saying political things, it would be about the man's actions in office, not that he bears a strange resemblence to a chimpanzee....

I got a kick out of this particular paragraph:

"To some customers out there, it's like a security blanket," said Dell spokesman Lionel Menchaca. "Every computer they've ever had has had a floppy, so they still feel the need to order a floppy drive."

And the reason I was amused is because I always make sure I've got a working floppy drive in my computer, even though I only use it maybe once a year, if that...

Well, I got some sort of nasty virus late last month, and I still have the remnants of the cough, but now I've got yet something else. The kids both had it, both got fevers, Zoë threw up, then Miranda was in a lot of pain and it seemed to be in her tummy.

Now I've got it and yes, it's definitely in the tummy. Lot of stomach pain, particularly after eating. It's just damned painful. Oh, and there's a miserable, won't-respond-to-pain-reliever headache, too. I also suspect I have a fever, because the heat's on and I'm about a meter and a half from the vent and yet I feel like I'm just freezing! I have a sweatshirt over a tshirt and socks and furry slippers, but I'm just so cold...

So Andrew took Zoë to her early intervention playgroup today, and took Miranda to childcare/playgroup, and I'm here at home. I thought about going back to bed (it's very tempting!) but I decided to stay up and just go to bed early tonight (again; I've been going to be pretty early for several nights now).

Bleah, I hate being sick. I hate it even more in the spring, when we should be getting over all these stupid virii and what have you. Owwww.

The Fightin' Whities of Greeley erupted as an international phenomenon last week, grabbing headlines and airwaves with their satirical mascot protest.
 
But will the intramural basketball team's biting humor help change mascots that many American Indians find dehumanizing?

Hope you have a great birthday!

Years ago when I lived in Germany, we went on a trip to Regensburg (wonderful place, by the way) and went to see something called 'Valhalla'. Only thing I remembered about it was that it was way up on a hill and it was a long climb to get to it, that it had a nice view of the river, and that it was full of marble busts and statues for some reason.

Today, I found pictures, and I'm happy to say the place is every bit as bizarre as I remembered, and that pretty much everything I remembered was accurate.

There's something comforting about that. Not sure what....

President George Bush rushed to reverse his assertion that the war on terrorism cannot be won as his campaigners sought to limit the damage from his statement, which Democrats had used to portray the commander-in-chief as defeatist.